Zaytuna’s Master of Arts degree in Islamic Texts is intended to provide students higher-level access to the Islamic tradition through a guided course of study in Islam’s primary sources. The master’s degree is a two-year program that culminates in a summative thesis. The program is intended for students who have completed a degree in Islamic Studies or in such ancillary fields as theology and philosophy, Arabic language and literature, and Islamic jurisprudence or history. Applicants must demonstrate substantial knowledge of the Islamic tradition. In addition, the master’s degree seeks students who can read, discuss, and engage the primary Arabic texts of the Islamic tradition at an advanced level. 

The course of studies includes advanced Classical Arabic language and literature, Qur'an, Qur’anic commentaries, Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Mysticism, Islamic Law, and the History of Islam. Furthermore, in each of the concentrations there is a comparative track that will allow the student to study texts in the European tradition that parallel the Islamic texts in their ideas and methods. For example, the study of Islamic Philosophy can be augmented by the study of Latin Scholasticism, or the study of Islamic Mysticism by the readings in Greek Neoplatonism.

The goal of our master’s-level courses and teaching methods is to sharpen the student’s ability to read and analyze primary texts and consider the socio-religious contexts and scholarly sources out of which such texts emerged, while continuing to engage in well-reasoned academic and scholarly discussion and research. Students will also be introduced to methods and research tools in both the Western and Islamic traditions. 

Applicants to the Zaytuna MA program must possess advanced competency in Arabic. Accordingly, before acceptance into the academic program, all students will be required to take an Arabic language exam. Students who do not pass this exam and yet show significant promise as scholars in the field must raise their Arabic skills to the required level before being admitted into the program.